Quote: randy allen

Given the parameters you've given though, almost any GSD under three or four ages old is out of the question.

Perhaps . . .

 Quote:

You've gotten rid of, by your estimation, a beloved dog because it made a snap at your child.

Yes, for three reasons:

1) My dog snapped at her when she was doing nothing that warranted it. She was not giving him crap, she was not even touching him. If there was a reasonable action that caused his F-off gesture, that would have been a different story.

2) Two trainers that have actually worked with him and know bully breeds have told me that it was "probably correctable," however also informed me that his behavior might be a problem whenever we had kids coming over (i.e. my daughter's friends).

3) My wife did not trust him around our daughter after the fact, and it was a sure-fire recipe for a poisoned relationship.

 Quote:

How you're going to deal with a dog that doesn't snap, but bites? And I mean bites for real. Welcome to the world of the rank driven, this is mine, and I'll fight you over it world of the young GSD you'll be looking at for your ppd propect. Take a good look at Sandy's very handsome 'young dog', what kind of damage you think one of his 'snaps' would do (probably protecting himself I might add)?

Part of me wants to say with OB, for the dog and the baby, but that sounds snarky even if it is kind of the truth. But without being cute, my honest step-by-step decision-making process was to pick the breed(s) that best fit my needs, research which I could find the most stable examples of, evaluate (both self-evaluation and through trusted trainers) what I could/should actually get (breed AND level of hardness/sharpness), get the best dog of said qualifications I can, and train diligently.

To be honest, I would hope my research, pointed questions of not only the breeder but my trainers, and things I would do differently in training now with more experience would change things in the above dog-snaps-at-children scenario.

I also do not believe every dog is going to be rank-driven and intolerant of children. I believe a lot of that can breed/line/individual specific, with some generalities among those breeds or lines of dogs.

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Mike and Will's lean towards a already trained dog is your best bet for what you're looking for, but until the child is old enough to be trusted around the dog.....beware, the child and therefore the dog is in danger. No matter the breed.

My only reason for preferring a puppy in this case would be that it would grow up with kid(s). I believe part of the problem with my Olde was that he was not raised around kids and he did not deal very well with the change. I have also talked with trainers about when to introduce a dog into my family. We are pretty much waiting until our daughter is not all-consuming and matures enough to have manners around dogs. Our timeline is babycentric. Still, she did nothing that warranted the response from our Olde.

-Cheers

For the record David, I did not say intolerant of children. I said, I would not trust unattended children around my dog(s), and I would never trust strange children especially.
For family thats means however old it takes for the the individual child, for strangers friends or not, that means forever.
In close to 60 years, I've only known a couple of dogs of any breed those rules could be bent for.

Randy

 Quote: david ruby

I do not want to rely on a dog's intuition or some storybook-come-to-life where the dog instinctively knows just what to do and does it. If that happens, then great, but I am not going to plan on that happening no matter how smart the dog. Knowing my luck . . .

-Cheers

No truer words were ever spoken/typed. I've known two dogs like that. One raised me and I raised the other.

They are however "one in a million" dogs. I've had the good fortune to know two. Molly is still up in the air. She's made some good decisions in unusual circumstances but she's still a silly puppy in others. If she turns out to be special then someone up there is looking out for me.

I tend to agree with the others that say you should look for a decent "pet" with the size to discourage potential trouble. The only advice I can add is to get it, make sure you and your family bond well with it, train it properly and hope for the best.

As for breed, of the two dogs I mentioned above one was a beagle and the other was a GSD so I think you might be better off excluding breeds that wouldn't be good for your situation and keeping a very open mind on all the other breeds.

 Quote: David Ruby

If I am getting a non-PP dog, I really just want a companion that will alert me to the presence of a possible criminal.

Then I recommend a dachshund! No one has EVER snuck up on our house!

In an un-related thread a post was made that I think fits this thread. It was about owning a Malinois and the point was people see a Mal and they are impressed with the flashy work and it makes them want one. They have no Idea the training that went into that dog. Nothing personal David, no offense meant at all, but reading your posts brought that to mind. Jmho but I think you need to raise a "pet" with your family before you make the leap to training protection dog. I wouldnt even be looking for an alarm dachshund, a little bit submissive makes it a lot easier to teach the kids how to live with a dog which is the biggest part.

Seriously chances are you don't need a PPD. They are pain in the a** and if you don't know what you're getting into...forget it. Will is right, most people in America don't need one. Buy a gun if you really feel that threatened.

Where I live is pretty bad and my girfriend was almost carjacked, houses get broken into all the time.
I own a gun and two GSD's (Czech). End of story. I feel safe but precautions have to be taken with my male all time. He has to be crated and can't be around the kids. He's not friendly to neighbors or anybody for that matter. Is that what you want? I can't see a dog like that in the suburbs. And I bet my dog is not as hard as some of the dogs Will talks about...

enrique

Hello:

If you don't mind, I think I have a solution that will assit you in making a wise decision. I won't comment on the obvious fact if you need a PPD dog, or want XYZ breed of dog, only you can do that. I want to apologize for such a long post.

Owning any type of dog will take an enormous amount of time, money, committment and supervision around family, friends, strangers who stick their hands out and try to pet your dog when you are on a walk or sitting outside of a starbucks reading your morning paper.

A dog of this magnitude will require MUCH MORE planning and supervison on your part, such as who will watch him when you have the family trip to see the grand parents, will you board or will you have a relative/neighbor watch the dog? Do you have access to a good vet that specialized in working dogs? What about BSL in your area? Will you kennel the dog while you are at work. Will the dog listen to your wife, can she handle the dog or correct the dog if you are away on business? Will you be the primary handler, if your wife is home all day, will the dog be loose in the house with her and your children, etc.

This is what I suggest. First and foremost, join a local club (and by local I don't mean the one in your town) and give yourself a "driving" time committment say, 2 hours each way.
You could assit with equipment, be a track layer, learn to be a decoy, be "one of the group" for the BH test, etc.

Just remember, people will move, clubs will have high and low periods your trainer or decoy might get hurt, there might be a new training director who you don't feel comfortable training with any longer etc.

You can get your dog "fix" by learning these things and going to training a couple of times a week. In the meantime, you can fix up your yard, get the holes patched in the fence, lay the concrete for the kennel, check out various types of outdoor kennels, find the place in your house or garage for the inside crate, get a couple of DVD's from here, listen the to the podcast, read "EVERYTHING" because chances are, someone has already made the mistake that you are going to experience. (All the DVD's and equipment here are top notch and I've been buying stuff from here for 15+ years).

You can learn about different sports, SCH, Ring, Mondio, learn about the pro's and con's of each. You are going to need to spend time doing training (maintenance training) going to seminars, reading books, buying DVD's etc. Is your wife on board with this? Will she also be doing this with you, if not you will spend many nights on the couch if you go to training 2-3 times a week and have to juggle work, family, dog training seminars, when your child gets older, PTA meetings, soccer practice, etc.

It may take you a few years before you decide on the right dog. This sounds pretty dumb, but I think that sometimes the right dog will find you. Be patient, be careful, never go alone to look at a dog or puppy, learn the pro's and con's of all breeds that you are considering (you mentioned a bouvier - remember just how much it will cost to keep him clipped, who is going to clip/groom him, etc).

Not trying to bust your bubble, just be very careful. Having a dog that will ultimately do harm to someone (either deliberately or accidently) takes a major committment and a serious adjustment to your lifestyle. Also, you or a member of your family will eventually get bite, it's not a matter of if, but of when. Also, spend time with the breeder/vendor this is a life long type of relationship.

Regards,
Brandon

David, I would suggest that you read Ed's e-book about dogs and children, I think he's spot on:

http://leerburg.com/pdf/preventingdogbitesinchildren.pdf

Iw would not want to mix a PPD with children, ever.
Best of luck, take the advice from Will, he knows what he is talking about.

My opinion would be like the advice of many others, get a breed that looks worst then the dog will actually be... maybe a doberman, rottie, GSD, and train him to bark like crazy, it's more than most owners need.

Good luck!

David,

Have you ever thought about a bullmastiff? They were originally bred to be guard dogs on British estates. They are supposed to "tackle" and hold down the intruder, or corner him, without biting or harming him.

My bullmastiff is the friendliest dog I've ever seen - she loves children, loves attention, follows me around the house non-stop, and barks her head off if anyone even walks by the house. I've never been threatened so I'm not sure what she would do in a bad situation, but my husband has "played" with her a few times to see what she would do. He's "play shoved" me and pushed me and she will shove herself between he and myself and try to push him away from me. She's a mama's girl. I took her to youth camp with me on an island for a week this summer, and one of the youth was snoring in a tent about 50 ft away. Star sat for 15 minutes at 3 in the morning growling back every time the guy would snore. I think if someone had stuck their head inside my tent at that moment it would have been a bad scene. I have never felt so safe in my life! :-)

She's so gentle that all the neighborhood kids come up to the fence and pet her, knowing she would never bite them. But she's so big that even though I'm pretty sure she would never hurt a child on purpose, she could sit on a baby or scratch a child while saying "pet me". We have children over to the house all the time and I never leave her alone with them. She's just too big of a dog. Which, of course, like Ted said, a large barking dog is a pretty good deterrent already.

Good luck in your search!

 Quote: brenda mitchell

David,

Have you ever thought about a bullmastiff? They were originally bred to be guard dogs on British estates. They are supposed to "tackle" and hold down the intruder, or corner him, without biting or harming him.

Yes. I would actually prefer a Bandog, just for health reasons, assuming that I could find the right one, which I know is going to be kind of hard. In researching Bull Mastiffs, they were originally amazing dogs, absolutely tougher than nails as they had to hold an intruder that would be fighting for their life. I am not sure they really did their job without harming the individual though.

I just worry about the health & longevity of current Bull Mastiffs. That kind of lead to my initial research into working breeds, and an interest in protection work, which combined with my wife's preference for a less drivey dog and my incomplete knowledge of serious protection work leads us to this thread . . .

Honestly, if we assume that a PPD is out of the equation, definitely for now and maybe for ever, I would prefer a nice softer-temperament example of a Molosser breed. I like them, and they are temperamentally what I know. I think an nice APBT or Bandog would be great (I know people are generally afraid of those two dogs, but provided they were the right individual dog one of those could be great, unfortunately crappers are probably more the norm these days), as would a Bulldog (American Bulldog or maybe a Leavitt) or Mastiff breed (Old English Mastiff or Bullmastiff, possibly a Tibetan Mastiff. I think I could even find a nice Rottie for that matter that would fit the bill, I think it is really more about the individual dog. But to answer your original question, if the right Bull Mastiff came along, I would definitely snatch it up.

Anyway, thanks for the input/advice. Before I make anything close to a decision on a dog, I think I will just wait until my daughter is older and keep training the Olde (he's at my parents and I see him regularly) so that I can keep learning and keep his OB from getting too rusty.

-Cheers